Crossing the Lion: A Reigning Cats & Dogs Mystery

by Cynthia Baxter

  Betty nodded. “You’re right, we haven’t seen the Merrywoods in a while. But I do remember him and Charlotte talking about the fact that they’d begun spending less time at their apartment in the city and more and more time at the estate they’d always thought of as their country house. It’s on an island they own in Peconic Bay.”

  I gasped. “Not Solitude Island!”

  Winston raised his eyebrows. “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  All of a sudden I knew why the name Linus Merrywood had sounded familiar. Solitude Island was a valuable piece of real estate that amazingly had been owned by the same family for hundreds of years. It was located between the two forks of Long Island—or, in more graphic terms, between the two tailfins of an island that to most people looks like a fish. Solitude Island’s original owner, back in the 1600s, was Epinetus Merrywood, one of the first colonists who came over to Long Island from England. Not only had he prospered wildly in the New World; for four centuries, his descendants had expanded the family fortune even further, maintaining their position as one of the wealthiest families on Long Island.

  And from what I recalled, the Merrywoods were as well known for their obsession with privacy as they were for their affluence.

  “But how could I even get close enough to the Merrywoods to find out what really happened to Linus?” I asked.

  “Charlotte asked us to come to the house for a few days to help her get through this difficult time,” Betty said. “We thought you might be willing to join us.”

  “It makes sense for you two to go, since Winston was friends with Linus and Charlotte for such a long time,” I mused. “But why would the Merrywoods—especially his widow—want a stranger like me around at a time like this?”

  “Because I told her that you’re like a daughter to us,” Winston said matter-of-factly. “She said you’d be more than welcome to come along.”

  Betty added, “Which means the only questions that remain to be answered are whether you’re willing to help—and whether you’ll be able to take off a few days from work so you can come with us to Solitude Island.”

  My mind raced. The last thing I’d been expecting was a request to drop everything and accompany Betty and Winston to an isolated private island to poke around a possible murder. Still, I’d already told the two of them that I’d help however I could. And I had to admit that the idea of getting a peek at the Merrywoods’ estate was pretty enticing.

  Besides, the week before Thanksgiving was always pretty quiet, work-wise. Most people were too busy with turkeys to make other appointments. As for the few routine checkups I already had scheduled over the next couple of days, I could easily ask my assistant, Sunny, to rearrange them. I was even free from my weekly television spot on local cable television, which usually aired live on Friday mornings. In order to give everyone a little breather right before the holiday weekend, the producer had decided to repeat one of my earlier shows.

  Before I knew it, I heard myself saying, “Of course I’ll go to Solitude Island with you. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “Good,” Betty said with a nod. For the first time since she’d stepped into the room, I noticed just a hint of a twinkle in her blue eyes. “Especially since I already told Charlotte to expect you.”

  For the next three hours, I felt as if I was running on fast-forward, as I threw clothes into a suitcase, called Sunny to go over the necessary schedule changes, and sent Nick what was possibly the longest text message in history. I explained that Betty and Winston’s friend Linus Merrywood had died and that they’d asked me to accompany them on a condolence call at his weekend retreat. I didn’t see any reason to burden Nick with the truth about my real mission, so I left out the part about investigating the poor man’s murder.

  I also asked Nick to take on the jobs of house sitter for Betty and Winston’s place and caretaker for my pets, now his step-pets. As much as I would miss my animals, I wasn’t sure how welcome they’d be at the Merrywoods’ estate—especially my two dogs, who sometimes struck me as the canine version of Beavis and Butt-Head.

  As for Frederick, Winston had decided his spunky dachshund was small enough and well behaved enough to come along with us. After we packed him into the car with our suitcases, we raced along Long Island’s North Fork in Winston’s cream-colored Rolls-Royce to the Merrywoods’ private dock where we drove onto a ferry-size boat the family also owned.

  Even though going to Solitude Island had sounded like a good idea at first, I wasn’t as convinced now that I was sitting on a roller coaster of a boat, shivering amid the fog, rain, cold, and sadistic waves. But I forgot all about my yearnings for both the creature comforts and the creatures themselves the moment the cotton-candy-like fog thinned just enough to give me my first glimpse of the island and the enormous mansion in the middle of it.

  As I pressed my face against the window, the first thing that struck me was that the Merrywood estate looked anything but, well, merry.

  Looming a few hundred yards in front of me was a sprawling building centered on the island. Thanks to the lightning that periodically lit up the sky, I could see it was made of rough gray stone, its shape reminiscent of a medieval castle. A dozen irregular towers and turrets spiked into the air, their tops disappearing into the dense fog. While a few small windows dotted the seemingly impenetrable façade, I could see no signs of life inside the house, from this distance, at least.

  As for the land surrounding the mansion, it looked equally uninviting. It was smothered in a dense blanket of tall trees that looked as if they’d been free to thrive on their own for decades or even centuries, their branches reaching out greedily to consume as much space as they desired. Because it was late November, the trees had already lost their leaves, exposing a chaotic tangle of bare, gnarled branches.

  Most of the island appeared to be ringed by a white-sand beach, which was all that separated dry land from the deep, dark waters the storm had converted into such a formidable foe. The ragged white peaks of the waves kept lunging toward the island. It was almost as if they were seeking out some poor unsuspecting beachcomber they could drag into their midst.

  Yet even though my new home away from home looked like a set from The Munsters, I had to admit that the scale of the place was pretty impressive. And it wasn’t only because the Merrywoods’ house was big enough to be converted into a couple dozen condos—or that it was surrounded by at least a hundred acres of gardens and grounds. What was truly mind-boggling was the fact that a single family could own a private island so close to New York City and leave it completely undeveloped, except for their not-so-humble abode.

  Betty must have read my mind—as she so often does—since she chose that moment to comment, “It doesn’t exactly scream ‘welcome,’ does it?”

  “It’s certainly big,” I replied diplomatically. “Have you ever been here before?”

  Betty shook her head. “No. Neither has Winston, since he mainly saw Linus at the club. And whenever we got together with Linus and Charlotte, it was either at their apartment on Park Avenue or at a restaurant in Manhattan.”

  “It’s hard to believe all this belongs to just one family,” I observed.

  “And I don’t think the children come out here much anymore,” Winston said, patting Frederick soothingly. The more the boat slowed down, the more excited the dachshund became, as if he knew he’d soon be back on dry land and could hardly wait. “The whole family spent lots of time out here when they were growing up, especially on weekends and vacations. But they’re all adults now and they’ve got their own lives. They probably find it easier to see their parents in the city. I seem to recall that all but one of Charlotte and Linus’s children live in New York.”

  “How many children do they have?” I asked.

  “Three,” Betty replied. “Two sons and a daughter. They’re all in their thirties. Linus had just turned seventy-five, but Charlotte is about fifteen years younger. I believe she was right out of college when they got married.”
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  “How about Linus and Charlotte’s children?” I asked. “Are any of them married?” Now that I fell into the lawfully wedded category myself, I’d developed a new interest in other people’s marital status.

  “Only one,” Betty said. “Their daughter, Melissa—Missy. Winston, you went to her wedding a few years ago, didn’t you?”

  “That was certainly a memorable event,” he agreed. “Quite extravagant, even by our club members’ standards. Well over five hundred guests attended. Linus wanted to hold the reception at the club, but it just wasn’t big enough. Instead, it took place in a tremendous ballroom in one of New York’s finest hotels. The event had everything from bagpipers leading the guests from the church on Park Avenue to the hotel to a five-course dinner complete with lobster and pastries flown in from Paris.”

  Whoa! I thought. As someone who had recently planned a wedding of her own—with a great deal of help from her mother-in-law, I should add—it was hard not to compare. And even Winston’s brief overview of the event went a long way in helping me understand the extent of the Merrywoods’ wealth.

  “What about their two sons?” I asked.

  “I seem to remember Linus mentioning something about his oldest boy having been divorced once or twice,” Winston replied after a bit of thought. “I also recall that Taggart’s inability to settle into family life was something Linus was quite upset about. As for the youngest of the Merrywoods’ three children, Brockton, I don’t believe he’s ever been married.”

  He sighed, then added, “Linus was desperately hoping for grandchildren who could one day take his place presiding over the business. Sadly, he died before he had a chance to see that dream come true.”

  “What about those three children of his?” I asked, surprised. “Why couldn’t one of them take over?”

  “Linus felt that none of them lived up to their potential,” Winston explained. “His contention that not one of them ever accomplished what he’d hoped for was a constant source of unhappiness in his life.”

  “Maybe he had unreasonably high expectations,” I suggested.

  Winston cast me a wary glance. “You can make up your own mind once you get to know them. Loving your children is one thing. Passing on the responsibility of running a Fortune 500 company is something else entirely.

  “In fact,” he continued, “that’s one of the reasons Linus brought someone else into the organization as his number two man. Harrison Foss—Harry. Linus expected that one day he’d take over the reins.”

  By that point, the ferry was pulling up to a dock. Given the size of the mansion, I was surprised that the dock was little more than a stretch of uneven, roughhewn boards. Jutting up at the far end was a small, dilapidated boathouse.

  But as I stepped off the boat, I wasn’t thinking about architecture. I’d had enough of the deep blue sea—and worrying that I was going to end up crammed in Davy Jones’s locker like a sweaty gym suit—but I braced myself for what lay ahead.

  Now that I was close to the house that up until this point had merely loomed in the distance, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to entering. As far as I was concerned, the place looked downright scary.

  I only hoped the family inside wouldn’t turn out to be just as frightening.

  Chapter 2

  “I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.”

  —George Bernard Shaw

  Even though I hadn’t spotted any signs of life from the boat, I’d assumed that was simply because we were so far away from the mansion looming upward in the center of Solitude Island.

  But as we stood on the front doorstep, huddled together in the pouring rain, the place looked just as desolate.

  “Do you think anyone’s home?” I asked Winston, my voice unusually thin. I peered through one of the two narrow stained-glass windows that framed the front door, trying to see inside without success.

  I was hoping his answer would be no—and that he’d suggest we turn around and go back home.

  Instead, he boomed, “Of course they’re home! They’re expecting us!”

  With that, he reached for the tarnished brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head. I squinted at the animal’s narrowed eyes and sculpted snout, noticing that its features made it look an awful lot like a man’s face—a man who had dead eyes and was in serious need of a haircut. In fact, it reminded me of the knocker on Ebenezer Scrooge’s front door in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, which eerily transformed into the face of Scrooge’s dead business partner, Marley, right before the bad-tempered old miser was visited by three ghosts.

  There’s no such thing as ghosts, I reminded myself as Winston rapped the brass handle against the door. The jarring noise prompted the poor wet dachshund tucked under his free arm to let out a startled yelp.

  I felt like yelping myself. But I remained quiet enough to hear the loud metallic knocking echo through the cavernous rooms I was picturing inside the house.

  I was about to voice my own feelings about the wisdom of hightailing it out of there when the heavy wooden door opened slowly, creaking as if its hinges hadn’t moved since 1928. We found ourselves standing opposite a man who had to be the Merrywoods’ butler.

  The tall, emaciated gentleman, probably in his early forties, was dressed in a black tuxedo, complete with tails. With it he wore a blindingly white shirt, a dark bow tie, and immaculate white gloves.

  Yet while his formal attire reminded me of someone on his way to a prom, he didn’t look like someone who was ready to party. His demeanor was pretty grim, but I had to attribute at least some of that to his unusually gaunt face and his unattractively pasty skin.

  I was considering suggesting that he spend a few hours in the sun when he drawled, “Ye-e-e-s?” while looking us up and down as if we were beggars.

  “Good evening,” Winston greeted him heartily, despite the fact that we were all up to our ankles in puddles and icy rivulets were running down the backs of our necks. “Is Charlotte in? She’s expecting us.”

  “Ah. You must be the Farnsworths,” the butler said in an English accent that was even thicker than Winston’s. He made no move to let us in.

  Jeepers, I thought miserably. Not only was he expecting us, but you’d think he would have noticed that we were getting soaked, standing in the pouring rain.

  “May we come in?” Betty finally piped up, sounding uncharacteristically impatient.

  “Ye-e-e-s.” Reluctantly, the butler stepped aside.

  The three of us moved considerably faster. In fact, we burst through the door, leaving our suitcases outside and practically tripping over them in our effort to get someplace warm and dry.

  Winston immediately set Frederick down. That made four of us dripping rainwater all over the highly polished marble floor.

  “Mind giving us a hand with our luggage, old sport?” Winston asked as he peeled off his dripping-wet slicker. For some reason he’d resorted to expressions commonly associated with his homeland, at least back in the days when he still lived in Jolly Olde England.

  “Sorry.” The butler gave a helpless shrug. “Bad back.”

  What exactly are this guy’s buttling skills? I wondered crossly as I dragged my suitcase across the threshold. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before I too would start complaining about a bad back.

  Yet I forgot all about how hard it is to find good help these days as soon as I got my bearings. I was too busy looking around as I shrugged off my wet Polarfleece, wondering if the Merrywoods’ butler was able to handle coat hangers.

  Not surprisingly, the interior of the Merrywoods’ mansion was totally consistent with the exterior—meaning big, dark, forbidding, and downright dismal. The front hallway stretched toward the back of the house, which, from where we were standing, appeared to be very far away. Its walls were covered in dark-wood paneling that greedily sucked up all the light.

  The only illumination came from an elaborate chandelier over our heads, which
looked as if it weighed a couple of tons. It was comprised of dozens of tarnished brass curlicues intertwined like a bunch of those nasty carnivorous vines that are frequently featured on the Discovery Channel. Yet despite its monstrous size, it gave out hardly any light. That was probably because the dozen or so lightbulbs hidden among all that blackened brass appeared to be about ten watts each.

  Even in the dim light, I could see that the hallway served the role of a museum. It was lined with various items that were meant to be looked at, rather than touched or used. On the walls hung big, dark oil paintings of octogenarians wearing black garments that had been out of style for at least a century. In most of them, the only accessory was a sour expression. I was sure I was simply imagining that the piercing eyes of the people in the portraits were focused directly on us.

  Positioned on either side of the hallway were two suits of armor that looked as if they hadn’t been polished since King Arthur’s posse wore them. Dusted, either. Given the Merrywoods’ wealth, I wondered why they hadn’t found themselves a good cleaning service. Or maybe dusting was part of the butler’s duties, and his bad back and determination to keep those gloves nice and white kept him from doing a very effective job.

  A few other large, decrepit-looking items took up space in the hall: an ornate Chinese chest of carved wood, painted in bright red; a nearly life-size snarling tiger made of marble; and a giant ceramic urn. I didn’t even want to know what that thing contained. Right above the urn was a sword with a jewel-studded handle, hanging by a tarnished silver chain. Centered above it was a dagger. The smaller weapon was substantially shinier, but it still looked old enough to be a collector’s item.

  As I surveyed the place that I’d be calling home for the next few days, The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s theme song began playing in my head: Let’s—do—the—time—warp—again!

  I reminded myself that I wasn’t an extra in a cult movie. This was real.